NZ STD STOCKS - FINALS & ALEX GILLAN MEMORIAL TROPHY(18th January 2003)

Saturday afternoon, all scruitineering and weighing of the cars had been completed, the crowd arrived and all was ready to go. The support classes of the historic stockcars and ministocks went with the finals as well as the consolation races for those not competing in the finals or the Alec Gillen trophy race.

Heat One
According to the TAB bettings, Blu Rawiri (27M) was the favourite to win the NZ title but all those ticket holders hopes were down as Blu pulled off with mechanical problems (although he did cross the line). Dougan Hart (41M) had the lead and held onto it while in behind him was the Huntly favourite Tony Wooten (71H). After a great run in the qualifying heats Scott Frederickson (8M) was getting beaten around. 57A Clint Herring got slammed into turn two wall and the first red light was on to remove the 57A car, 89W Dale Robertson was getting blocked by many, not much action as expected due to it being Heat One. Hart crossed the line first with Wooten in behind, 3rd went to 2NZ Clive Pritchard crossing in 3rd.

Heat Two
As the flag went down Frederickson was on the move from the back, Craig Chatfield (74A) drove a great race and managed to stay out of trouble while Peter Rees was spun up, however Rees back on the gas pushed his way through the cars fiercly. Steve McPherson 49H was leading the race until Dale Robertson 89W got him with a good hit sending him straight into the wall which allowed Frederickson to take the lead. First across the line was Frederickson followed by David Marshall 54P and then Peter Church 66A.

So afte two heats the points had been tallied up and the top ten drivers were: -

14P Peter Rees
54P David Marshall
9W Paul Gaskin
41M Dougan Hart
74A Craig Chatfield
66A Peter Church
99A Grant Littlewood
55A Noel Hawthorne
23H Lance Ashton
49H Steve McPherson

But as all drivers know, anything can happen in the third heat……..

Heat Three
99A Grant Littlewood didn’t make it out due to a gearbox problem, As the flag dropped, Rawiri went to work taking cars out. All top three point scorers to date were taken out, Hart and Chatfield both had a few cars on them each while Church and Hawthorne seemed to circulate quietly. Amongst the carnarge saw the white flag come out then one lap after the chequered went down. However it was discovered that they only ran 10 laps instead of 12 laps. It was announced after a long protest that ended at 1am that Peter Church 66A was now the new 1NZ and that will stand, 2NZ will be 9W Paul Gaskin and 3NZ is 54P David Marshall.

A great weekends racing, although the lap scoring and issues of the finals were not accurate, it was well worth watching.

ALEX GILLAN MEMORIAL TROPHY The next 26 cars who didn’t make it through to the finals were racing for the Alex Gillan Memorial Trophy. The 26 cars were: -

45H Phil Briscoe
4B Tony Palmer
76M Dean O’Reilly
67A Nick Krsinic
31W Hilton Parker
22H Blair Ashton
1NZ Graham Ward
75R Darren Dodge
118 Bruce Harding
93M John Roberts
94A Mike Nowell
42G Chris Lovell
86K Phil Gleeson
7C Neil Frew
11M Graham McRobbie
65R Grant Duske
24B Jason Obrien
73M Clinton Thickpenny
237A Paully Rawiri
108H Stefan Montrose
128 Graeme Lambert
116H Steve Halse
29M Peter Hunt
6W Paul Wood


Heat One saw crashes and smashes as expected, Thickpenny drove through cars and pushes his way to get the chequered flag for heat one. Heat Two however, he got knocked around a bit whilst Deon O’Reilly stayed out of trouble and scored the lead and the chequered flag. Heat Three was just like the NZ finals, cars getting taken to the wall. Blair Ashton got the flag and a hometown cheer from the Huntly supporters. After the points were tallied up it was seen that two cars were tied on points for second and third place. Blair Ashton 22H and Paully Rawiri 137A had to have a 4 lap run off to see which placing they would get. After Paully got the jump it was a side by side race for the first two laps until Paully went wide and got a flat right front tyre. He however waited for Ashton and got his side rail but Ashton kept going, another final swing from Rawiri but Ashton got the flag and the 2nd placing. The runoff was great but the sportsmanshop after this was the best, Paully got out of his car and over to Ashtons, he drove Ashton around in the 22H while Ashton held the flag up to his home crowd with pride. Both Auckland and Huntly supporters were showing there support and appreciation to both drivers.

So the final top 10 place getters for the trophy was as follows: -

76M Dean O’Reilly
22H Blair Ashton
237A Paully Rawiri
31W Hilton Parker
73M Clinton Thickpenny
67A Nick Krsinic
1NZ Graham Ward
4B Tony Palmer
108H Stefan Montrose
29M Peter Hunt